Today the Qubes team is pleased to announce a partnership with the laptop maker Purism and the launch of the Qubes-certification program.

In our work on Qubes OS, we have focused on creating a reasonably secure operating system. A common barrier of entry to Qubes for new users is uncertainty whether their hardware can take advantage of all of Qubes’ security features.

With the Qubes-certification program, we will partner with a few select computer makers to ensure that Qubes is compatible with them, so that new users have clear path towards getting started with Qubes if they desire. We aim for these makers to be as diverse as possible in terms of geography, cost, and availability.

As part of this partnership, the Qubes team will certify Purism’s Librem laptops to ensure that they are compatible with Qubes.

This begins with the certification of the Librem 13. For existing Librem 13 users, we have provided instructions on improving Qubes compatibility with the Librem 13. For users now who seek to buy a Librem 13, there will be an option to have Qubes pre-installed on their Librem 13. This will include all the necessary tweaks for maximum compatibility with Qubes.

In addition, the Qubes team will receive a small portion of the revenue from any Librem 13 sale that come with Qubes pre-installed.

Both organizations are interested in stable, long term support for Qubes+Purism laptops. Going into the future, we plan with Purism to improve the functionality and security of Purism laptops to ensure that Qubes users can have the best of freedom, security, and privacy in one convenient package.